11 Great Cinematic Leaps for Leap Day

It only happens once every four years. This time, to celebrate Leap Day, we at Flickchart are looking at 10 (plus one!) memorable leaps across the silver screen. Be it a leap of faith, or just a means of showing off, there are no strings attached: just a step, and a launch into the open air. Join us as we take one giant leap for cinema-kind. (Just tread lightly; one or two of these could be considered mild SPOILERS.)

Here they are, in no particular order:

1.The Matrix(1999): Morpheus leaps between skyscrapers in the Jump Program

There are no shortages of amazing moments in The Matrix– from the introduction of “bullet time”, to the many kung-fu fight sequences, to the reveal of the “fetus fields” – but one of the first real eye-opening events is when Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) introduces Neo (Keanu Reeves) to the path towards controlling his new reality, and shows him how it’s done. Morpheus tells the crew to load the “Jump Program”, and then proceeds to prove to Neo that rules don’t apply in the Matrix. As he (and we, as an audience) gawk at his effortless vault across skyscrapers, it’s all we can do to contain ourselves after Neo’s now-infamous single word response: “Woah.” – Nathan Chase

As outlaws go, Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) are good – real good. Though they’re most comfortable dandying about town, riding bicycles, and getting daguerreotypes snapped with their shared girlfriend, Butch and Sundance are willing to rough it in the badlands and cross international borders if it means staying out of the lock-up. Only trouble is, even the most romanticized of movie bandits sometimes reach a dead end. Standing at the edge of a cliff, a waterfall roaring in front of them and a faceless, tireless cavalry behind them (“Who are those guys?”), most fugitives would surrender. Not Butch and Sundance. The video shows what they do instead, and the iconic stunt is echoed in the movie’s famous finale when the buddies opt once again to leap into danger instead of going quietly. – David Conrad

With The Three Ages, Buster Keaton leapt from shorts into features… oh, we’re talking actual leaps, not metaphorical ones? Okay. We can do that. The film is a parody of D.W. Griffith‘s multi-era epic, Intolerance; Keaton’s version isn’t about injustice, though, it’s about love. Specifically about Keaton’s love for a woman, conflict with a rival (Wallace Beery), and ultimate triumph over that rival across three time periods: Stone Age, Ancient Rome, and modern day. The modern day story ends in a double chase, as Keaton tries to escape the police (a common theme in Keaton shorts) and reach the church in time to stop his love from marrying the heavy. One segment of this chase has him leaping from building to building across a street – but he misses, slides down some awnings and ultimately lands safely on the back of a fire engine. A Hollywood legend claims that he didn’t intend to miss but had to work the gag into the film once he did, but Keaton’s planning was so meticulous that it’s pretty unlikely, and to be honest, the gag is much scarier and funnier because he doesn’t make it and has to improvise. Keaton did all his own stunts (at great personal danger – he actually broke his neck while filming Sherlock Jr.), and this is just a foreshadowing of the amazing feats he’d accomplish in his later features. – Jandy Hardesty

The part of The Martian that’s hardest to believe – other than a NASA employee not getting a Lord of the Rings reference when Sean Bean is RIGHT THERE – is the way Mark Watney (Matt Damon) traverses the final few meters of space between his stripped-down Mars Ascent Vehicle and the Hermes spaceship that’s come to rescue him. As Captain Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) floats tethered to the ship to help catch him, Watney aims in her direction and then propels himself toward her by puncturing his suit and letting the oxygen escape behind him; he turns himself into a rocket using his own breathing air as fuel. Of all the jury-rigged fixes that kept him alive while stranded on Mars, this last one is the least likely to work and has the smallest margin of error. While maybe just inside the realm of possibility, the scene plays more like an emotional truth than a scientific one. To invert Neil Armstrong’s famous words, it is a great leap for a man after a step-by-step physical and intellectual marathon. – David

John McClane (Bruce Willis), alone in his fight against the terrorists led by the villainous Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), desperately tries to rescue a group of hostages from the roof of Nakatomi Tower, before explosives that Gruber’s thugs have rigged can blow them to pieces. Of course, the only way he can get their attention is by firing his stolen machine gun…which gets the attention of FBI Agents Johnson and Johnson, who mistake McClane for one of the terrorists. In the midst of a hail of gunfire, and with time running out before the roof explodes, McClane can think of only one way to escape: leaping from the 40-story roof, tethered only to a fire hose. It’s just one of many outlandish and exhilarating moments in what is still one of the most heart-stopping action films of all time. – Nigel Druitt

In one of the more inventive action sequences of Peter Jackson‘s inaugural Middle-earth film, the nine members of the Fellowship flee from a goblin horde and the fearsome Balrog in the underground realm of Khazad-dûm. As they descend a crumbling stone staircase, goblin arrows whizzing past their heads, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Boromir (Sean Bean) must help the little Hobbits jump the gaps, while Legolas (Orlando Bloom) returns fire. Of course, Gimli the dwarf (John Rhys-Davies) flat-out refuses assistance, resulting in one of his many moments of comic relief…and one of the most memorable lines in the film, to boot. (It is also a moment audiences will fondly remember during the Battle of Helm’s Deep in the next installment,The Two Towers.) – Nigel

During this part of the movie, the Battle of New York isn’t going too well. They heroes are vastly outnumbered and need a new battle plan, as up to this point, the Avengers are just frantically attacking whatever they can without any real direction. Captain America then takes the lead and gives everyone their orders – Hawkeye is on overwatch, Iron Man is on seek and destroy, Thor is told to focus on the portal. Hulk keeps patient for his orders, which Cap dutifully gives: “Hulk – smash.” Hulk grins widely then leaps approximately (and I’m being conservative here) a million stories in the air and begins to take apart the Chitauri soldier pouring out of the big hole in the sky. It’s such a great tide-turning moment for the battle, and a definite high point in the movie. We see Hulk making conscious decisions and not just destroying anything that gets near him, and we get the thrill of “HE SAID IT!” when Cap gives Hulk his orders. – Jeff Lombardi

There are two people on the roof. One is a crazy man in need of immediate professional help, and the other is a suicidal jumper. Mel Gibson, of all people, is the person who has to stop a guy from killing himself. But Gibson’s Riggs doesn’t talk people down – he takes people down. And he’s not overly concerned about his own well-being this Christmas season, either. His erratic, wide-eyed ranting shocks the would-be jumper into changing his mind, but it’s too late. Gibson has decided there’s only one way off this roof, and it’s not the staircase. – David

First of all, if you haven’t seen Buffalo Soldiers, you really should. It’s a great, underrated black comedy/satire about life in the army during the end of the Cold War. It follows Joaquin Phoenix‘s Ray Elwood, who uses his position to secure plenty of chemicals to keep his on-the-side drug manufacturing ring going. When the hard-nosed new CO Sergeant Lee, played by Scott Glenn, ruins Elwood’s fun, a contest in one-upmanship takes place, escalating to the point of killing soldiers on the base, Elwood plans one last big score. Towards the end, Lee has Elwood handcuffed and literally backed up against a wall – or rather, a window. Elwood wraps his handcuffs behind Lee’s neck and falls back out of a high window. We think that this is an end-game for both parties, until Elwood ever-so-slowly rotates his body around, placing Lee on the wrong side of a fall. – Jeff

When you’re wanted for murder and the tenacious U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) is on your tail, there’s only so far you’re going to get. Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) discovers this when Gerard and his crew corner their fugitive inside a hydroelectric dam. Trapped by Gerard at the end of a storm drain, Kimble is out of options. Knowing that he will never discover who truly killed his wife if he winds up in prison, Kimble’s desperation takes hold, and he makes his fateful choice. – Nigel

Archaeologist and adventurer extraordinaire Indiana Jones (Ford) is nothing if not a pragmatist. Religion and the legend of the Cup of Christ, the Holy Grail, are his father’s forte, not his. Nonetheless, with the life of the elder Jones (Sean Connery) hanging in the balance, Indy finds himself faced with the ultimate test of faith: a step out into an open, seemingly bottomless chasm. “You must have faith, boy,” Dad whispers. It goes against everything Indy believes in, to accept something he cannot see with his own eyes. Still, he steels himself, and makes his leap of faith. – Nigel

What are some of your favorite cinematic leaps? Let us know what missed our list in the comments below.

An avid Flickcharter since 2009, Nigel is a self-described fanboy whose Top 20 is dominated by the likes of Indiana Jones, Frodo Baggins and Marty McFly. Nigel is the Canadian arm of the Flickchart Blog, but try not to hold that against him. You can find him on Flickchart as johnmason.